clinth

I suppose I should show this as resolved, since I took the above advice and it worked. What vkaryl says is absolutely right: “The ONLY solution is to find another theme that is laid out like you want, THEN start tweaking the graphics.”

The moral of this story is: Stay away from Kubrick. Just don’t even use it. Pick another theme you like, preferably one with good commenting in the CSS to help you see what’s what, and tweak that.

Also, and I can’t recommend it enough, if you’re running Firefox, get the Firebug plug-in. It is *invaluable*.

So the wrapper is what I’ve been calling “container” on my own pages. Just wanted to verify.

I would find one of those three themes that you like and get it set up the way you want, then add the features from the other two themes to it.

Are there any of those features that are harder to add than others? That is, are there any that are hard enough to add that I should choose the theme that has them and add from the other two?

Doodle:

Your tutorial looks very good. In general, yes, I prefer to create stuff on my own, if only because I know what I did and why, thus making it easier to fix. On something as large in scope as this, though, as long as I can figure out the nuts and bolts enough to do what I need to do, I don’t mind using a template.

That being said, these three themes have everything that I like and want. There are aspects of each that I like. I like the colors and layout of the Painted Desert, I like the page links on Andreas, and I like the calendar and subscribe features on TripleK. If I could combine those three things, I’d be a happy camper.

I think Brian’s right: There’s something that ought to be turning off the default header and it’s not turning it off. It’s still being allowed to generate, and in front of the header graphic. It’s almost as if the kubrickheader.jpg is being placed on the background and the default gradient header is rendering in front of it. But then that doesn’t make sense because the page graphics are apparently behind my header graphic. Is it a z-index thing? I’m just not versed enough on any of it to determine. I’m very close to taking whoever’s advice it was (vkaryl?) and going with a custom theme and customizing it. Based on what Brian said–that he’s set up several WP blogs and hasn’t had this happen before–I get the feeling that in this latest couple of updates/-grades, a wrench got left behind in the code.

doodle:

I copied and pasted your suggested code into my file and it did at least get it back to where it was showing the page, but the header’s still screwed up. So that part of my code reads exactly the way you sent it to me.

No one who downloads and uses WordPress is a “customer”. This is open-source software. Free. No one pays for anything. Therefore, there is no paid support (if they don’t make money, how would they pay for a team to answer questions?) You get volunteers because the development of the software is ALL volunteer.

So change the word “customer” to “user.” I wrote all that mostly in terms of analogy. I understand WP is open-source and free. I expected to have to learn more about coding if I was going to get deep into customizing it. But I wasn’t planning on doing that. I was planning on switching out my header graphic. That was it. I assumed that, at least, would be a simple affair. My main frustration has been with the documentation, in that as abundant as it is, it’s been entirely unhelpful. Since what I’ve been trying to do has been about as basic as it gets, it sure seemed that the fix ought to be equally basic and quick.

To expect someone to be here all the time to answer questions means WP is not for you – you need to go get yourself some MT or another program you dish out money for, and you’ll get your support with correct answers 24/7.

I don’t expect someone to be here “all the time,” ready to pounce on every problem at a moment’s notice, as I understand it’s a volunteer effort. I’ve never thought otherwise. I did expect, however, simple things to be simple, and when they weren’t, for the documentation to fix them to be accurate, and when that wasn’t, for the support to provide a reasonably quick fix. None of that has happened. I’ve had several generous people take time to read (kind of) what my problems are, and offer suggestions on how to fix it, but so far none have worked. And that’s the main gist of my frustration with WP. It’s lovely to get something for free, but ultimately, if it doesn’t work the way I expect it to work, and as advertised, I haven’t gained anything. I’m now working on the third day (or fourth?) of trying to solve this problem (not counting the two months, off and on, that I’ve been jacking with it myself, trying to make the documentation relate to what I’m seeing in the actual files). After a while, as a time investment, yes, it might be better worth my time to head over to MT. We’ll see. I have a feeling once I get this taken care of, I’ll be okay, which is why I’m still hoping for a fix.

have someone who actually works on the WP code provide assistance with that code, rather than volunteer members who simply have experience with it.

you get both here.

That’s good to know. And yet I still don’t have a working header.

If you want to pay for assistance, you can go to the wp-pro list. There are plenty of people who will assist you for pay.

That, actually, I didn’t know. I’ll look into it if this continues to be a dead-end.

This isn’t business, or Matt Mullenweg would be filthy rich right now.

In the end, as my momma always said, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Fair enough, but at the end of the day, Matt wants people to have a good impression of his product and to use it. Presumably it’s of more benefit to him than not for that to be true. But if his documentation is lagging behind (which is true); if a lot of people are still stuck trying to make earlier versions work while newer versions are coming out (which is true); then it might behoove him to shore up the foundation before throwing down more bricks.

Just comment all of that out. (meaning, put slashes before each line: //)

Your stylesheet is already set up to show the kubrickheader.jpg file, and is pointing to the right directory for it. Try that first and see what happens.

Thanks very much for the suggestion. I’ve tried that, both through the theme editor on the Dashboard and by hand and uploading it. Both times I received this error:

‘Parse error: parse error, unexpected ‘}’ in /home/content/t/e/x/texvanwinkle/html/aliastex/wp-content/themes/default/header.php on line 22′

vkaryl,

Thanks for the e-mail address. I am browsing other themes per your suggestion. I’ve found a few that look promising. If no one can point me to a solution by the end of the day, then I’ll go ahead and take that dive and see how that goes. It just seems ridiculous that I should have to go to the trouble of loading a custom theme simply to replace a header graphic.

Cheers,

C.

vkaryl,

Thanks for the prompt response. Sorry if I sounded a bit snippy in that last post, but I’ve been trying to fix this off and on for two months now and my frustration level is at its peak. I want to be able to tell people I’ve got my blog up and running and I can’t with it like this.

I’ll take your advice and go the custom theme route. Thanks for that tip. I have to wonder, though, why it is that if the default theme is as inscrutable as you imply it is, why there isn’t an effort to make it easier and more accessible. The documentation, at the very least, needs work.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

Clint H.